Virginia

Statewide summary — confirm with your building department before designing

Ultimate design wind speed corrected from 115 to 120 mph. This is not a map interpolation argument: the City of Virginia Beach publishes its own adopted Table R301.2(1) and fills in 120 mph, and Virginia Beach is the most populous city in the Commonwealth and part of a Hampton Roads metropolitan area of roughly 1.8 million people. The stored 115 mph sat below that adopted requirement. Henrico County in the Richmond metropolitan area adopted 115 mph and the City of Charlottesville adopted 110 mph, so 120 covers the coastal governing case without falling short anywhere else that was checked. Nothing else on this row was changed. Seismic design category B is confirmed and is in fact the conservative envelope for the whole state: Henrico County and Charlottesville both adopted B, Virginia Beach adopted A, and the USGS ASCE 7-16 design maps service at Site Class D and Risk Category II returns 0.084 g at Virginia Beach, 0.092 g at Norfolk, 0.143 g in Arlington, 0.249 g at Richmond and 0.291 g near Mineral in the central Virginia seismic zone, none of which exceeds B. Termite risk of heavy corresponds to the IRC moderate to heavy band and matches all three adopted tables. Frost depth of 24 inches over builds the localities checked, which adopted 12 inches at Virginia Beach and 18 inches at both Henrico and Charlottesville, and errs safe. Ground snow load of 20 psf matches Henrico exactly but brackets a real range, 10 psf at Virginia Beach and 30 psf at Charlottesville, with the mountains higher still. Winter design temperature of 10 F is below every adopted Virginia figure found, which run 16 F at Charlottesville, 17 F in Henrico and 22 F at Virginia Beach; there is no single statewide adoption so it is left unestablished. Confirm your own lot with the local building official. Sources: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/virginia-beach-departments-docs/planning/Permits/Building/climate_geographic_design.pdf, https://henrico.gov/bldg/design-criteria/ and https://earthquake.usgs.gov/ws/building-codes/ SNOW LOAD AUDIT, 2026. snow_load_min_psf and snow_load_max_psf are left null, and no value on this row was changed by this pass. Virginia does not set a ground snow load. The 2021 Virginia Construction Code, Part I of the USBC and effective 18 January 2024, lists at section 103.4 the model-code provisions that remain valid provisions of the Virginia code, and item 3 on that list is, verbatim, "Section R301.2 of the IRC authorizing localities to determine climatic and geographic design criteria." That is an express statewide delegation written into the Virginia code itself: the Commonwealth adopts the 2021 IRC and then assigns the Table R301.2 numbers, snow load included, to each locality. DHCD publishes no statewide snow table, no snow map and no county list. There is nothing to read a Virginia minimum or maximum from, which is why both are null rather than estimated. This is worth contrasting with wind, where Virginia does legislate a statewide rule. The VCC adds a paragraph to the end of IRC Section R301.2.1: "Wind speeds for localities in special wind regions, near mountainous terrain, and near gorges shall be based on elevation. Areas at 4,000 feet in elevation or higher shall use the ultimate design wind speed of 140 mph (62.6 m/s) and areas lower than 4,000 feet in elevation shall use the ultimate design wind speed of 110 mph (49.2 m/s). Gorge areas shall be based on the highest recorded speed per locality or in accordance with local jurisdiction requirements determined in accordance with Section 26.5.2 of ASCE 7." The parallel amendment to IBC Section 1609.3 sets 142 mph above 4,000 feet and 116 mph below. Virginia has terrain above 4,000 feet in Grayson and Smyth counties, so 140 mph is a real adopted Virginia figure that exceeds the 120 mph on this row. The 120 was retained because it is the Hampton Roads governing value from Virginia Beach's own adopted Table R301.2(1) and describes the populated coast, but a special-wind-region or high-elevation site in southwest Virginia must use the VCC figure instead of this row. The locality-adopted snow figures recorded in the earlier audit remain the best available evidence and remain local, not statewide: 10 psf at Virginia Beach, 20 psf in Henrico County, 30 psf at Charlottesville, with the mountains higher still. Three localities out of more than 130 is not a range for a state, so no min or max was written from them.